In the sermon 'Faith as a Mustard Seed,' Jason Dohm discusses the biblical passage from Matthew 17:14-21, which describes Jesus healing a boy possessed by a demon. The sermon contrasts Jesus' divine glory, as shown in the Transfiguration, with His willingness to engage in the messy realities of human suffering. Dohm emphasizes that faith, even as small as a mustard seed, can accomplish great things if it is pure and persistent. He highlights the importance of prayer and fasting in overcoming spiritual adversaries, underscoring that spiritual warfare is not a game but requires earnestness and dependence on God. The sermon also reflects on the dangers of faithlessness and presumption, urging believers to seize the opportunities granted by God and to walk in wisdom, recognizing that God's patience is not indefinite. Ultimately, it calls for an active, persistent faith that seeks God's promises and brings glory to Him.

Today's scripture is Matthew 17 verses 14 through 21. For he is an epileptic and suffers severely, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?

Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him. And the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief, For assuredly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We pray that you might open our ears and hearts. Amen.

Last week we had an amazing text. I suppose we could say that every week or should say that every week. But it was Jesus taking Peter, James, and John away for him just to be with those three disciples and to pray intensively with them. And he was transfigured before them. And in the Gospel accounts, that's unusual.

We don't see Jesus in the Gospel accounts with a face shining like the sun and with his clothes as white as the light. And so we're tempted to think wrongly about that passage. Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration is Jesus as He is. He is Jesus in His glory. In Genesis 1, 1, God says, let us make man in our image.

So all the way in Genesis 1, 1, we have a whisper that there's a plurality in the Godhead. And Jesus is there and the world is made through Him. All the creation account is done at the hands of Jesus Christ and He's there in Genesis 1 in glory. He's a lot more in Genesis 1 like He is on the Mount of Transfiguration than He is on the cross or than He is in his ministry. And then when we go all the way to the other end of the Bible in James 1, John, the apostle who was on the Mount of Transfiguration and sees Jesus with his face shining like the sun, we'll see him again walking among the seven golden lampstands looking just like that.

His face is shining like the sun, again in Revelation 1. And so we get the sense that it's only this blip of time, it's only this brief 33 years where Jesus takes on the form of a servant. And it's all of eternity past and it's all of eternity future when he'll look like this, like he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. And he'll be in his glory. And his face will shine like the sun.

And his garments will be white as the light. We saw Jesus as he is last week on the Mount of Transfiguration. And Peter, James, John, these three disciples are given this heavenly vision. They actually get to see Moses and Elijah and Jesus having a council together and talking about his death that was about to be accomplished at Jerusalem. And they witnessed this cloud coming down from heaven, and the voice of the Father saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

Hear him. Now imagine that. There's Moses, the giver of the law, the writer of the Pentateuch. There's Elijah, who has stared down these 400 idolaters and rebuked a wicked, bloodthirsty king and the wife of a wicked woman, Jezebel, and a bloodthirsty woman to their face. And the voice of the Father is, listen to the third man.

Listen to Jesus Christ. He is the beloved Son. He is the great head of the Church. And so last week was a text of glory, of Jesus in His glory. And this week, we're right back down to earth again.

We're right back with Jesus in the messy problems of the earth, with desperate people who have nowhere else to turn but to Him. And it just seems like it's so far away from the picture of glory that we were in last week. Let's pray as we go to our text. Father, help us. This is our prayer this morning.

You would help us. Come. Send your Holy Spirit in a mighty way to be a tutor to us in your Word. Drive home these words to our hearts, O God, so that we love them, so that we obey them, so that we're built up in our most holy faith. God, help us with our unbelief.

Help us to grow. Use your word as a mighty instrument to help your people to grow and to be conformed into this precious image of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. I'm going to break this text into three sections, the first being verses 14 through 16. And when they, Jesus, Peter, James, John, had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him, and saying, Lord have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

So I brought him to your disciples that they could not cure him." I just spoke about the transition from last week's text to this week's text. But it's so stark. We go from Jesus in His glory to just individual problems of average people. And we're faced with this desperate Father who's probably tried everything in the book, nothing's worked. And he's heard of Jesus and he comes.

I want to quickly read two passages from the Psalms that I think frames this for us. Both are by David. The first is in Psalms 8, verses 3 and 4. When I consider your heavens, David says, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?" David takes up exactly the same theme in Psalms 144, verses 3 and 4, where David says, Lord, what is man that you take knowledge of him, or the Son of man that you are mindful of him? Man is like a breath.

His days are like a passing shadow. Don't we feel this way after last week coming into this week? Jesus is there in His glory. His face is shining like the sun. Why would Jesus care about an average man and his problems?

Why would he? He's the Lord of Glory. He was there at creation. He'll be there to the end of time in His glory. Who cares?

So we live in a cursed world. Why should God care about that? It's man's rebellion that has landed this man in this predicament. But the fact remains that Jesus does care. Jesus does care for this man.

And that's why he's here in the form of a servant. He does care that we live in a cursed world where sons are possessed by the devil who wants to destroy them. He does care about that. And the picture of Jesus in flesh is a picture of a God who's glorious. He is glorious, but he still is concerned, though his preacher has rebelled against him.

You don't get any flavor of that in the text. Matthew doesn't stop to meditate on that, because that's not the point that Matthew's making. But we should stop just for a second to say, Jesus was there just hours earlier and His face was shining like the sun. And there's no reason that we can give ourselves why he should care. That a race in rebellion is suffering under the pains of that rebellion.

But he does care. And he did come down off of that mountain knowing that there would be the works of the devil and he wants to destroy them. Turn to Mark 9. Mark 9 is a really important text. It's Mark's account of the same events and they're much more expansive so we get a lot more details in Mark 9.

Mark 9 we're going to start just by looking at 14 through 18. And you're going to need to have a finger in Mark 9 because we're going to come back here two more times. So mark it. Mark 9, 14-18. And when he came to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them.

Immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed and running to him, greeted him, and he asked the scribes, What are you discussing with them? Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son who has a mute spirit. And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down. He foams it in the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they could cast it out, but they could not.

So we get some things that Matthew doesn't report to us. And the first of those is that as Jesus approaches His disciples, and it has to be the nine disciples because He has three with Him, as Jesus approaches the disciples, Those disciples are actually disputing with scribes. And we find out what they're disputing about because Jesus asks them what they're talking about. And the answer comes back from this father. And it's about the inability of these disciples to do what he was asking them to do, to cure his son.

So he came for Jesus, but Jesus wasn't there, so the disciples tried and the disciples failed. And it appears that this is an opportunity for gloating of the scribes. And the scribes are seething on this as an opportunity to attack Jesus and his disciples. In Matthew, this boy's, the son's infirmity is called epilepsy or in the King James renders it lunatic, he's lunatic, meaning a disease of the mind that is better or worse according to the phases of the moon. That's how it's described in Matthew.

In Mark, the Father actually attributes this to a mute spirit. As we work through the passage, we'll find out that the Father is right. It is the result of demonic activity in this son. And in Mark we find out that this mute spirit seizes him and it throws him down and he foams it in the mouth and he gnashes his teeth and he becomes rigid. So the combination of Matthew and Mark has left us with a really pitiable picture.

Matthew says this happens often, this happens all the time, where the works of the devil are manifest in this sun, and it's throwing him down into the water and into the fire to destroy him. In Luke 9, there's one more parallel passage, which is in Luke 9, and this is the only time I'm going to reference it because most of it is crossover with either Matthew or Mark. So I'm working primarily from those two passages. But in Luke 9 we find out something we don't find out in the other two which is he's this father's only child. So this is pitiable indeed.

This is a father who only has one child. He loves this child. And the works of the devil are often manifest in this child as the devil seeks opportunity, Any opportunity to destroy this only son. Now observe how the Father approaches Jesus. He comes, He kneels before Jesus, and He applies for mercy.

He says, Lord, have mercy on my son. This father approaches Jesus in complete humility. There's no presumption. There's no air of entitlement, like Jesus owes him anything, but he's desperate. This is a father with nowhere else to turn, and so he turns to Jesus and he kneels before him and he applies for mercy because only the mercy of Jesus Christ is going to free His Son from the works of the devil.

We should stop here and say that this is what misery should do for us. Not to us. This is not what misery should do to us. This is what misery should do for us. It should bring us to our knees before Jesus.

This is why James says, count it all joy, my brethren, whenever you fall into various trials. Because those trials have that ability to bring us to our knees. Where we would be proud, where we would be presumptuous, where we would have an air of entitlement, It strips all that away and it brings us to our knees before Jesus so we can actually receive something from the Lord. And that's what it's done from this Father. And that's a blessing.

So those are the circumstances that our texts have described for us. Now, let's come back to our text, to verses 17 and 18. Matthew 17, 17. Matthew 17, 17. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?

How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. What the disciples couldn't do, Jesus does immediately and Jesus does permanently. Now you're going to have to take my word for it on the permanently for a minute. We'll come to that.

But we're going to find out from looking at these various texts that That's what happens. He does it immediately, without delay, and he does it permanently. And then, Jesus makes an accusation and he asks two questions. That's what we see in these verses. Jesus making an accusation and asking two questions.

So first the accusation, or maybe we should call it a declaration, because Jesus accuses you of something. You're guilty of it. So he makes a declaration, or maybe he makes a condemnation, because he is declaring a righteous judgment. And he calls the whole generation, the whole generation, saintless and perverse. Isn't that terrible that there can be a whole generation, saintless and perverse?

This is not new. When We were memorizing the Song of Moses a couple of years ago. We were memorizing these same words. Jesus could be pulling directly from the Song of Moses or other places. We see this as the theme in the Bible, a faithless and perverse generation.

There are two places where it says almost exactly in these words in the Song of Moses. I'll read this one. In Deuteronomy 32, 19 through 21, Moses prophesied this about the future of Israel. And when the Lord saw it, He spurned them because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. And He said, I will hide my face from them.

I will see what their end will be. For they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith." Moses puts his finger on a future generation of Israelites and he says exactly the same thing. They are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith. They have provoked me to jealousy by what is not God. They have moved me to anger by their foolish idols.

But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation. I will move them to anger by a foolish nation." So we see that it's not a new thing to have a Faithless and perverse generation. Moses was talking about it in Deuteronomy 32. Many generations in a locale or in a region or in a nation are faithless and perverse. Is it a stretch to say that we live in a faithless and perverse generation today?

Can we say that? Can we accurately say that we live in a faithless and perverse generation? I think we can. The second thing that ought to be said is that faithlessness and perversity go together. They're a happy couple, faithlessness and perversity.

They belong together. And it must be that way. Romans 1 describes the cycle. It starts with people who will not just acknowledge what's right before their eyes, that the heavens declare the glory of God. That's not exactly what Romans 1 says, but that's what it's talking about.

That the creation declares the eternal attributes of the Creator. But there are people and they will not glorify God as God. And they will not be thankful. They refuse. And so Romans 1 from there just describes the downward spiral of perversity that happens there.

Romans 1 describes the cycle. You start out with those who will not glorify God as God and will not live thankful. And from there it's just a vicious spiraling downward into ever increasing perversity. Faithlessness and perversity always travel together. And as we saw in the Song of Moses, God, though He's slow to anger and abounding in mercy, He will deal with the generation that's faithless and perverse.

He's patient. He waits and provides many, many, many opportunities to repent. But when a faithless and perverse generation will not repent, then God, at the time of His own choosing, when it seems wise to Him, will come onto the scene and deal with that generation. Now we know that the whole generation is being spoken of. It's not just the Father, but the Father is included in this.

So I want to go back to Mark 9 And see what Mark 9 says about this beginning in verse 20. Mark 9, 20-24, speaks of the Father and the condition of His faith. Mark 9, 20, Then they brought him to Jesus. And when he saw Jesus, immediately the Spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, cloming at the mouth. So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?

And he said, from childhood. And often he is thrown both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the father immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe.

Help my unbelief. This Father obviously has some sense that Jesus is able, and that's why He's brought His Son here. That's why there's already been one attempt at the curing of His Son, and yet He utters these words, "'If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. If you can do something. And Jesus immediately turns the tables and says, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

In other words, I am an inexhaustible reservoir for those with faith. Do you believe? I'm an inexhaustible reservoir for people with faith. My ability to do something is not the issue. Do you believe?

All things are possible to him who believes. And the Father says, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Jesus doesn't despise small, weak faith. As long as there's a recognition that it's deficient faith, and it needs help.

It needs to be helped. But the Father meets this criteria, doesn't it? The Father understands that He has a small weak faith and He's not content with it and He's coming to Jesus and asking Him for help. He desires an increase in his small, weak faith. He acknowledges, he sees that it's small and weak, and he doesn't want it to be small and weak.

And he knows that Jesus can help him with that. So he applies for an increase of his faith. This should be an encouragement to us. Have you ever felt like your faith was too small, that it was too weak, that it was deficient? Have you wondered if Jesus despised you for that?

Well, the answer I think would have to be, it depends. Do you want an increase of it? Do you acknowledge the deficiency of it? So that you'll come in humility and say, I believe, but I know about that belief, but I need help with my unbelief. That's what this Father does.

And He's not despised by Jesus. This is a broken and a contrite spirit, and He's not despised. Here's what we have. We have the scribes who are open mockers, openly defiant, openly resisting. We have a faithless and perverse generation at large, and we have a father with wavering faith.

Brothers and sisters, we have a miracle-killing environment here. That's three strikes. Openly hostile scribes, a generation that is faithless and perverse, and a father with wavering faith. And that makes God not unable to do anything. God can do anything.

He's almighty. But it makes Him unwilling in many instances to act out of His mercy. Because He does things to bring Himself glory. And to people who won't learn, who won't bring Him glory when He's merciful, He becomes unwilling. And we saw this in Matthew 13.

At the very end of the chapter, Jesus is back in Nazareth, and He says a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, except in his own country. In the last verse of Matthew 13, verse 58 says this, Now Jesus did not do many works there because of their unbelief. Unable? No! Unwilling!

Because of their unbelief. Nazareth was a miracle-killing environment because God wouldn't receive the glory. So Jesus has accused the whole generation of being faithless and perverse. Now he asks two questions. And we read these two questions as rhetorical questions.

And so we translate it in our brains like this. Why do I have to put up with this? Isn't that what we do with these questions? Jesus is sick and tired of putting up with this. Why do I have to put up with this?

But I want to suggest that there's value in actually answering the questions and actually taking them not as rhetorical questions that we translate into something else, but actually ask and answer The questions as Jesus has posed them to us. First question, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I be with you? What's the answer to that question? A few months?

A few months. Now, they're not expected to know the answer to that question, but we have the Gospels. So we can honestly ask the question and honestly answer it. Jesus will only be with them a few more months. But at least they know this.

The answer is not forever. Jesus is not going to be with them forever. And that means that there's a window of opportunity where the means of grace are among the people of God for a period of time. There's a window of opportunity. And it's a trust, It's a stewardship that has been given to them and they're doing nothing with the means of grace that are in abundance.

When you're at the center of the universe, then the means of grace are always in abundance. Always. But that universe only exists in your brain. That's not the real universe. In the real universe, where God is at the center, The means of grace are made available to you at His pleasure according to His wisdom.

And you can't assume that they'll just keep coming in abundance to you. Isaiah 55 verses 6 and 7. Isaiah 55, 6 and 7. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man His thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on Him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." God, through Isaiah, says, Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. When Jesus asks this question, it's to highlight the point that if you think the Lord might always be found, that He might always be near, and so you can just seek Him at your leisure. You can just seek Him because He'll always be near.

That's not true. There are windows of opportunity that God gives. And this generation was in the window of all windows. A co-equal member of the triune God is walking among them doing miracles preaching sermons and they're Faithless and they're perverse and they think the window will stay open forever, but it won't it never stays open forever The means of grace being in abundance, we should squeeze the last drop out of every means of grace that God would give us. Second question, how long shall I bear with you?

How long shall I bear with you? What's the answer to that question? A little less than 40 years. There's a real answer to that question. A little less than 40 years.

He is speaking to Israelites. And he has said that the time is coming when one stone will not be left on top of another in the temple. And that is literally fulfilled in 70 AD, when the Romans come and lay waste to the 3.1 million people who were in Jerusalem. It is a slaughter on an apocalyptic scale. 3.1 million is what Josephus says.

Maybe it was wrong, but it was a lot of people. And the temple, this happens to the temple. There's not one stone left on top of another. And Jesus stopped bearing with them. And he came in judgment.

Listen to Matthew 24, verses 37 through 39. Matthew 24, verses 37 through 39. But as for the days of Noah, excuse me, but as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will the coming of the Son of Man be." Times of judgment always reveal the same thing.

That people assume that God would always bear with them. Eat, drink, marry, be given in marriage. It'll be like this forever. God will bear with us forever, but then the water comes and sweeps a whole generation away. Or an army comes and the temple is laid waste and not one stone is left on top of another one.

People are filled with presumption As if God owes us another breath, another hour, another day, He owes us nothing. And so the abundance of the means of grace just gets neglected because we'll be there again tomorrow. And we presume that God will bear with us another day. And another day, and another day, and another day. That's not true.

There's a real answer to that question. How long will I be with you? There's a real answer to the question, how long will I bear with you? And we might not know the answer, but we are well served to know that there is one. That the day is coming with a certainness that his hand will not be able to hold his hand back.

We should walk circumspectly. We should walk in wisdom, not presuming upon the means of grace that God has given us or thinking that God will bear with us forever. Verse 19 through 21. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief.

For assuredly I say to you, that if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. And nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. The disciples want to know why they couldn't cast out the demon. And here's the background.

The background is Matthew 10, where Jesus sends these 12 men out to preach repentance and that the kingdom of God is at hand. And he actually empowers them to do miracles to confirm their message. Listen to Matthew 10 verse 1 and then verses 7 through 8. And when Jesus had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. And now skipping down to verses 7 and 8.

And as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Raise the dead. Cast out demons freely you have received.

Freely give. Jesus had given these men authority and actually commanded them to cast out demons. And they have. They went out and they did all these things. And Luke records that when they came back, they were rejoicing that even the demons were subject to them.

And so they expected when this Father comes, that they'd be able to do this. There was no lacking in expectation. So if that's how you define faith, then they had it. They expected to be able to do it. They knew that God could do it.

The question though, that they're asking, why couldn't we do this, has a presupposition. It presupposes that they couldn't do it. Right? It presupposes that they couldn't do it. Right?

It presupposes that they couldn't do it. And in verse 20, the Jason Dome translation of verse 20, is it isn't that you couldn't do it, it's that you didn't do it. And you didn't do it because of unbelief. Couldn't do it. If you had faith, as small as a mustard seed, you could speak to a mountain and tell it to move from here to there, and it would move from here to there.

Nothing is impossible. The last time we saw a mustard seed was Matthew 13, verses 31 and 32, and it's where Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. And then It says that a mustard seed is the least of all the seeds. It's the tiniest one. You're going to despise a seed, despise the mustard seed.

There's nothing to it. It's just tiny, like a grain. And yet, it becomes a tree. The Kingdom of God is like that. But the point was, the Kingdom of God is going to start like a mustard seed.

Tiny. And now Jesus is saying, if you have faith like that, just the tiniest, it's the least among the seeds, the tiniest faith, you can move a mountain from one spot to the next. So it can be small faith, but it has to be pure faith. It has to be unmixed faith. In other words, you can't be mixing in all this unbelief and move the mountain.

Had they had small, pure faith, it would have sufficed. James 1 addresses this. James 1 is Speaking of asking for wisdom, so it's a narrow scope. But as James speaks about this narrow scope of asking for wisdom, then he broadens it out into a principle that applies. Listen to James 1, 6-8.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. I think very important for understanding this part of the text rightly is to go back and look at a really similar situation that we just hit a couple of weeks ago. Turn to Matthew 15.

Just flip one page, Matthew 15, beginning in verse 21. This is the Canaanite woman whose daughter is severely possessed. So we're just swapping out parents here. It's a father in Matthew 17. It's a mother in Matthew 15.

But they both have severely possessed, demon possessed children. I'm going to read Matthew 15, 21-28. Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely deemed a disaster.

But he answered her not a word, and his disciples came and urged him, saying, Send her away, for she cries out after us. But he answered and said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then she came and worshiped him saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. And she said, yes, Lord.

Yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said to her, oh woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire. And her daughter was healed from that very hour. You see how many crossover points there are between these two texts.

They're so similar, and because they're so parallel, it makes the differences actually stick out like a sore thumb. There's so many things alike that when you hit something that's different, it's almost jarring. Now, when we compare these two histories, we do it like this, I believe. We say that the mother is coming to Jesus for help, And the Father had come to the disciples for help. And this is true because, at least in a way, in a sense it's true, because the disciples, they don't have any of their own power.

It's derived power. They're trusting in the Lord. They need the Lord for their power. And so they're a representative of Jesus in that case. But there's another way to consider this and to just slice it and look at it a little differently.

And that's that there are people who are powerless, who are going to God for mercy. People who have no ability to do what needs to be done, going to God because He is able. And In that sense, the disciples are just like the desperate mother. The disciples are just like the desperate father because they know what needs to be done and they have no ability to do it and they just have to go to God because He's able. So let's think about this Canaanite woman.

First approach, she's ignored. He doesn't even answer her. He says not a word. Not a word. Second approach.

He just explains why he shouldn't help her. He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. So he just tells her why it is that he shouldn't help her and he tells his disciples that. Third approach. He says, you're just a house pet.

You're just a house pet. You don't give what belongs to the children, to the pet, to the little dog. And she persists, and she persists, And she persists, and she persists, and she persists, and she persists, and she will have it from Jesus. You know Jesus loves that woman. In spite of his ignoring her, in spite of his explanation of why he shouldn't, in spite of his saying that she's a little dog, he loves this woman.

Because she's persisting. She will have what she came for. When we were in this text, we went to Genesis 32 just to look at how similar it is to Jacob. And Jacob is wrestling with God. And he says, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

I'm not letting you go unless you bless me. That's what the Canaanite woman was doing. And Jesus says, your faith is great. You have great faith. Expansive faith.

Much faith. Let it be to you as you desire. The Canaanite woman's faith was proven to be more than an expectation that he could do something. It was proven to be more than an intellectual assense that he was able to do something. It was an active faith.

It was a persistent faith that would have the object. She would not let him go until He blessed her. This brings us to Matthew 17 verse 21. This time does not go out except by prayer and fasting. You want this time to come out?

You'll have to be prepared to be persistent. Now let's turn back to Mark 9. Let's turn back to Mark 9. Let's turn back to Mark 9. This is our last time in Mark 9.

And I just want to use Mark 9 to shed some light on what Jesus means by this kind. What is this kind? Mark 9, 25-27. And we've already seen up to this point that when Jesus calls for the boy in the Mark account, that the demon throws this boy into a fit and he's foaming at the mouth. So that has already happened.

Then we see this in Mark 9.25. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Death and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more. Then the Spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said he's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose." Now we've seen a lot of demons be cast out in Matthew.

We've seen a legion, a thousand demons, be sent into a herd of pigs and we didn't have this show. So I don't know how to give you the taxonomy of demons and where the cut points are and what's the difference between the bad and the really, really, really bad. But I think we would have to say by the Gospel accounts that this is the really, really bad that only come out with persistence, with prayer, with fasting. Humdinger is not a biblical word, but if it was, we'd want to apply it to this. This one is a humdinger.

This one, even in the face of a command from the Son of God, is going to do the most damage on the way out that he can possibly do. Now we've been given a glimpse of this in the book of Matthew already. It's just a little glimpse, but it was in Matthew 12, And it's Jesus describing the wicked generation in Matthew 12. Do you remember that? Matthew 12 verses 43 through 45.

Jesus says, when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, He goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter and dwell there.

And the last state of that man is worse than the first, so it shall be with this wicked generation. Jesus, in speaking of the generation, talks about a wicked spirit bringing seven spirits more wicked than himself. There are more wicked spirits. Interestingly enough, to cross this Matthew 12 passage back into our text, in Mark 9, Jesus says to the demon to come out and to enter him no more. What we learned in Mark 12 is they like to come back.

They like to come back with other spirits that are more wicked than themselves. So when I said earlier that Jesus does what the disciples could do immediately and permanently. That's what I meant. Jesus, when He commands this demon out, He says, you cannot enter anymore. Here's what John Calvin says.

He's giving the sense of this, and he's putting words into the mouth of Jesus to give the sense of it. So he's writing as if Jesus was essentially saying this. John Calvin says, You are effeminate exorcists. You're effeminate exorcists, said he. And same as if you were engaged in a mock battle, got up for amusement.

But you have to deal with a powerful adversary who will not yield till the battle has been fought out. This is war. This is not a game that the disciples and Jesus are playing. This is actually war. It's spiritual warfare.

And it's to be fought in all earnestness and dependence on God. The disciples do not have a magic wand to command their adversary to do things. But it's a war, and it is to be engaged in with all diligence, with all persistence. A few concluding remarks. A few concluding remarks.

Normally when I hit this part of the sermon, This is just kind of mop up time. In the sermon. Just tying up a few loose ends. And trying to drive home a few points. This is probably the most important thing I've said since we've started.

This is not just mop up time. So if I've lost you because I talked too long, come back. And I want to make three points. The first is this. Let's come up 10, 000 feet and look at what we have here.

We've had a ground level account where we've been looking point blank at things. And it's helpful just to come up 10, 000 feet and see the bigger picture. Every bit of this account is for the glory of God in Jesus Christ, every bit of it. God orchestrated every nanosecond of this so that He would receive the glory. When we look at Job 2 and the work of the devil in Job 2, God is dictating all the terms, God is setting all the parameters, and He's doing that to bring glory to Himself.

This accounts no different. Just like Job. It's just like Job 2. God has set all the parameters on His enemy and He's using His enemy as a tool to make His glory manifest so that His goodness would be evident to those people and all the people down through the ages who have read this text and looked and seen how merciful Jesus Christ is. In Luke 9, our other parallel text that we've really ignored today, it gets to one of the last words, in Luke 9, 45 it says, And they were all amazed at the majesty of God.

This is the output of what has happened in this text. The people are just left amazed at the majesty of God. So this isn't Jesus stumbling upon circumstances and reacting to them. This is God displaying His glory and increasing the faith of His people. Number two, consider the malice of the other kingdom.

Matthew's been all about the kingdom of heaven. It's at hand. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's not the only kingdom. And the other kingdom hates you.

The other kingdom has unending malice towards your soul. This is a boy who's thrown into the water and into the fire, often to destroy Him. That is the desire of this other kingdom from this boy. Do you think you're different? Do you think that the other kingdom has different designs on you than it has on this boy?

On this boy? The persistence... Jesus asks him in Mark 9, how long has this been going on? He says, since he was a small child. The persistence of this demon to destroy this young boy should make us stop and consider our souls.

1 Peter 5, 8. Be sober. Be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. What should we do with that information?

That he's like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? That if he had his way, he'd throw you into the water and drown you. He'd throw you into the fire and have you burn to death. What are we to do with that information? Be sober.

Be vigilant. As I've considered this passage this week, I've been astonished and humiliated at my lack of vigilance as if there's no war going on. It is spiritual warfare. You had better be sober and vigilant. Yes, greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world.

But He's not a weak enemy. He's not a stupid enemy. He knows how and when to strike. And so Peter, who's more spiritual than you, who lives night and day with Jesus, says His counsel to you is be sober, be vigilant. This is what we should do with the information that God is giving to us.

Finally, number three, and lastly, There are things that have been promised to us by God, But we don't have them, because we're acting like we're playing a game, and not waging a holy war against the works of the devil. Things promised to the people of God by the head of the church, by God Himself, that we are entitled to, but we do not have because we're messing around, we're playing around, instead of waging a holy war against the works of the devil. We have the promise that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the Church of God. We ought to be battering down those gates simply because we have a promise. What are those things?

I don't know. My guess is it's a long list. More evangelism is happening now in our churches, I think, than at any point that I am ever aware of, where are the converts? Where are they? We have a weekly presence at the abortion clinic.

Why aren't more women responding to that? Oh, well, God's sovereign. He must not want to do anything right now. Despicable poverty. Despicable poverty.

Do we think that it's righteous to be content with that? In light of the promises that God has given us, and in light of the text today it says there are some things you just have to wage war for, warfare for to obtain. It takes a life of prayer, takes a life of fasting, It just doesn't fall out of the sky into your lap. But it's been promised to you by God. By the way, I'm not trying to discourage the evangelists.

Say the evangelists aren't praying. I'm saying we should be praying for the evangelists that God would give them fruit. We should be fasting. We should be rationing up the earnestness of our prayers, as evidenced by fasting and other things. We should be more intentional, more intent, more intense than we've ever been in our prayers, knowing that right on the other side of those prayers is a God who can do anything at any time.

You want sovereignty? Okay, God sovereignly brought us to this text to rebuke us for a lack of faith and for playing around when we should have been waging war. That sovereignty, he brought us here to hear these words and to be changed by them, not just to hear them, but to do them. This coincides with my birthday week. It's just becoming a very special week for me in the sense that I do more self-examination on that week.

This has been a hard week. Because God has been saying in my soul, it's time to grow up. It's time to grow up. It's time to shed a lot of those things that you love that there's no fruit from them. It's time to pray.

It's time to fast. It's time to act like there's a war on her. You can't be a little boy forever. Has God ever said that to your soul? Nothing will be impossible for you.

The gate of hell will not prevail against his church. Let's pray. Father, we end as we began by just crying out to you for help. And as a fitting God, I would be the first to repent. My life's been so prayerless.

Fasting has been so addicting. And I love my conference. Help us. Help us, O God. Help us, O God, to lay hold of your promises.

God, we want your glory to be seen to spread. We want your name to be hallowed. We want your kingdom to come. We want your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Help us to have an active faith, a persisting faith, kind of faith that you call great, where we lay hold of you and we say, we will not let go until you bless us.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus said, I know.